Hate Brings

Hate brings them together
and drives the world apart.

A terrorist blows himself to bits,
hoping to die in glory
while killing all the infidels.
It doesn’t matter who
the infidel is—
mother, father, sister, brother—
all must die
when hate brings you together
and drives the world apart.

Across the world
a bumper sticker calls for revenge—
Kill them all—Let Allah sort them out.
No, don’t kill them all
lest you not see that hate
has made you blind
to the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers
hate has left behind.

No, don’t kill them all
because hate brings you together
and drives the world apart.

After watching and reading the April poetry challenge by Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Readingfor the past several years, I decided to write a poem a day this month. Mary Lee is hosting PO-EMotion, with a different emotion for each day of the month. Today’s focus is HATE. For even more poetry fun throughout April, check out the roundup of poetry celebrations and projects at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.